Paint Pot Procrastinator

Games Day 2010 Pics

2010-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I hadn't planned to go to Games Day 2010, but I happened to win a ticket. Many thanks to Shelexie over at Wanna B Painter. At first I was going to give it to my son go so he could go with his friends, but I decided to go along. It was my first Games Day, and I'm glad I went along. It was a great experience. Next year's Games Day is in Chicago. I imagine that Games Day 2012 will be in Los Angeles. So it will be a while before I get another chance.

Below are some pictures I took. First some generic photos.

Waiting for the doors to open:
A very large Space Marine:

A Witch Hunter:
A Space Marine, the winner of the costume contest:
A Space Ork, not sure if this was an official costume or not:Regrettably, my camera was not doing too well in the hall, so many of the pictures I took didn't turn out very well. This was especially true at the Forge World display. I did however have decent luck at the Golden Daemons display. I couldn't get them all, as the glass cases were unkind to my flash. I'm pretty sure I have these right

First up is the LotR Golden Daemon:

This the the Young Blood winner:

40k 1st place vehicle:
40k second place vehicle:
40k third place vehicle:
40k first place squad:

40k second place squad:
40k third place squad:

40k Large Monster and Slayer Sword winning entry:

Land Raider WIP

2010-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

The next item on my Grey Knights list is a Land Raider. Frankly, I've wanted to build one of these for a while, and could hardly wait to get started. Painting the Dreadnought had to wait!

There's quite a few folks out there who, despite the fact the inside a vehicle/aircraft will seldom be seen, feel the need to paint it. This despite my paint pot procrastinating tendancies. Probably for the same reason the folks at GW put some time into detailing the inside. The Land Raider kit has nice detail, and I looked at it as a chance to play around with ideas.

The top picture is the engine compartment and a control panel. My favorite part is the brass fittings, which are done using a Tin Bitz base over light grey primer, overcoated with Burnished Gold and a Badab Black wash. The skull and gear icon was my first attempt at mirroring colors. I like the way it looks, and was looking for an excuse to try it.

Next is a picture of the sides. Here was an experiment in yellow using VMC Light Yellow and Gryphonne Sepia wash. I'm wondering if I got a bad batch of Gryphonne Sepia, as it comes out of the pot looking orangish. I imagined it as something much more yellow. Also here is a failed experiment with highlighting the edges, probably not going to use that much again.

I do have some Forgeword Grey Knight doors for this. I got the Land Raider, including the doors, in a good deal on Ebay, still much cheaper than what a Land Raider would cost in a store. Timing is everything. Here is the inside of the front, top hatch. Very happy with the colors, and am actually looking forward to having some red on the outside as well. After looking at this picture, I touch up some spots I had missed. May have to take pictures of everything from now on...

An odd part about the side doors is that they were too small. I'm not sure if that is the case with all FW Land Raider doors. If I had bought these direct from FW, I would have called about the problem. One bad thing about buying second hand, you can't take advantage of FW customer service. It's a relatively easy fix. I glued thin strips of plasticard around the outside, filed away any overlap, so it should be unnoticable after a good priming. Fix is on the left here, next to the other door still needing to be done.

Poseable Action Dreadnought

2010-08-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

I found another fun thing to do with magnets. I honestly don't know what inspired me for this particular magnet idea. Perhaps I was just looking for a way to paint pot procrastinate. Perhaps I just had magnets on my mind. Regardless, I thought I'd share the fun.

I started putting together a Dreadnought for my growing Grey Knight army. I got a great deal on an unfinished standard Dread and some extra arms (see my last two posts about arms). As I was putting it together, I noticed there was enough gap in the waste to place a magnet or two. Since the magnets would have to reach through two thick plastic sections, I wasn't sure how many I'd need. So, I just put one of every size round one I had.

In order to make this work, I figured the other magnet needed to be loose inside the sarcophagus. The only issue I had was trying to use small magnets. There are two metal pins in my dread. One holding on the head, and one the smoke launchers. Every small magnet I used would stick to one of these pins. It would stick so well I'd have to shake it loose every time, which I didn't want to do. So, I tossed in a big square magnet leftover from a batch bought for some long forgotten project. While it still sticks to the pins when the dread top is not touching the bottom, the pull between to two magnets is strong enough to pull them together when they're close enough.

The actual design does limit its "poseability," but it was still a fun experiment with magnets. Another advantage, given all the nooks and crannies of the legs, is that it will be easier to paint in two sections. This is why the leg armor isn't attached yet. Well, I actually had them on and realized I wouldn't be able to paint behind them very well. They'll be added later. The armor is from the Dark Angels sprue, with a poor attempt at a GS book.

The front of the sarcophagus actually keeps it from spinning all the way around. With the magnets though, it can easily be made to look backward, should something attack from behind. Here's some views of the "poseable" range.
Right:

Left:

Up:

Down:

Another Dreadnought Arm Conversion

2010-08-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

So, of all the extra Dreadnought arms I had, one of my favorite weapons was missing; the plasma cannon. I had a SM Devastator plasma cannon left from a previous bitz buy. I've had success converting one to use on a Sentinel, so it made perfect sense to use it here. This is the finished product.

I started with an extra Assault on Black Reach Multi-Melta arm like this one. First thing to do is cut off the front weapon parts and the cables underneath. I also decided to remove the fuel canister tips from the back end.

I had to add a bit of plastic to the bottom cutout, as I hadn't accounted for the part where the wires enter the backpack. I cut the backpack part to fit in the bottom cutout, figured out how to make the original large cable fit the gap, and used a piece of electrical wire to replace the original smaller cable. I also added a few bits to break up the flatness of the back.

Like the sentinel conversion, I would probably have saved a lot of time by buying the Venerable Dreadnought Plasma Cannon arm bits. Whether I really did it because I enjoy converting, or just to avoid the paint pots, it was a fun diversion.

Dreadnought Arm Modification

2010-07-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I had picked up a standard Dreadnought and a set of extra arms, which included several from the Assault on Black Reach set. My plan is to have several arm options. Breaking from my magnet preference, I decided friction was enough to hold the arms in place during games. Like many Dreadnought makers before me, I also found the AoBR arm holes were smaller than the standard Dreadnought kit. Some converting is required to make them work.

A quick look through my tool box found that a 3/16" drill bit was the proper size for the standard Dreadnought. I didn't feel the plastic around the current AoBR hole would stand the strain of drilling, let alone attaching and reattaching for game play and storage. However, with a bit of reinforcement, it should work out alright. I used sprue bits, cut to size and glued in place, as shown in the first picture. I used more than enough glue, to help fill in the gaps between sprue and the existing attachment hole.

Once the glue dried, I took the 3/16" inch drill and bored the bigger hole. I was concerned with using a power drill on this work, so actually used the drill bit like you would a Hobby Drill. In other words, I simply held it in place with my hand, and spun it with my fingers to drill the hole larger. It took a bit of wrangling that way, but I was happy with the results.

I took a cue from John over at Santa Cruz Warhammer and decided to 'plate off" the inside of the arm so you can't see the sprue bits. It gives a cleaner look, and is similar to the way the standard Dreadnought arms come on their sprue. Using a pencil, I traced the outline on a piece of thin plasticard, cut it with a knife, and dry-fitted it in place. Before I glued the plasticard on, I used a standard hole punch to make the hole in the plasticard, roughly estimating the location. Once glued in place, I then cut and filed the excess and beveled the edge.

My First Forgeworld Order

2010-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

So, I won a gift card at work last month, and decided to indulge in a bit of Forgeworld goodness. I had a lot of stuff in my wish list, and it was tough narrowing it down to my limit. Given I've started putting together a small force of Grey Knights, I decided to focus on that for my first purchase. I want to say it was a good first experience, as they had it shipped the day after I ordered it, and it was to my house in Virginia, USA 10 days later. All except one were perfect casts, and that one had only minor warping. I've read many complaints about poor casts and long delays with Forgeworld orders. I've no complaints here, except for discovering someone on the Internet is wrong!

First on my list was a set of etched brass Inquisition/Grey Knight emblems. I blame Karitas for making me want these, as I saw him use them on his AoBR to GK Terminator conversion post. Before that, I had thought them a luxury, but now consider this a must have for Grey Knight conversions. While I could create some of these with GS, the detail on this small piece of brass is great and will definitely save me some time. For information, I'm planning on a GK Dreadnought, a Land Raider, and converting some plastic Terminators. This will come in very handy!

Though I like the look of the Forgeworld Dreadnought arms, I wanted to try converting some instead (in other words, I already have some extra arms). So, I moved on to stuff I'd need for the Land Raider. I really liked the look of the tank commander, so I picked up one of those. It comes in five main pieces, the body, the arms, right and left shoulder armor pads, and a head. They also throw in two purity seals. As usual with Forgeworld bits, they have great detail and I'm looking forward to putting them together. Price-wise, it's not much different than you'd pay for a similar specialized GW mini, so I consider it a decent purchase.

Next up is the Psycannon upgrade for the Land Raider. I didn't think this was something I wanted to convert, so I decided to buy it. I do plan to try a psycannon dreadnought arm conversion, so this will be used to scale that as well. As you can see, there are three unique pieces: right and left psycannons, and a targeter. Frankly, I expected it to come with the mounting bits, and was disappointed when I found it did not. One more thing to add to my magnetizing "to-do" list.

Last up is a set of Aircraft Punisher Cannons. Now I know these aren't Grey Knight related, but I have a conversion in mind for this and did an impulse buy. Here was the lone bad spot in the order, as one of the barrels is slightly warped. Even though I have no experience with fixing resin pieces, this should be a simple fix. This set contains a lot of repeat pieces. The two cannons are identical, the two magazines are identical, of course the wing mounts are identical, and the two ammo belts were cast as one piece but are the same.

My plan is to make a turret, mount the cannons and magazines over-under, and have it count as a Hydra. I ~~blame~~ credit Admiral Drax for this conversion idea, as he suggested something similar on Col. Corbane's post about Kitbashing a Hydra. The only trouble so far is, all the turret ideas I had are too small to accommodate a cannon and magazine set up. Actually, I was concerned with this before I ordered it. It will be a couple months before I get to it, so have plenty of time to figure out how to make it happen. Other options I'm considering are Admiral Drax's Hydra turret, or buying a Forgeword Manticore Conversion kit and magnetizing it for both versions. Suggestions are welcome.

More Grey Knights

2010-07-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Since I posted about a Nemesis Force Weapon Scratch Build, I've seen some posts about converting AoBR Termies into Grey Knight Termies. Now I'm not ready for that conversion yet, but I did have a regular Grey Knight in power armor that needed a NFW. In my earlier scratch build post, I started with a force halberd pole and handguard, and only needed the blade. With this figure, I was missing the whole arm. I figured if you can convert a CC arm from a regular Terminator to a GK Terminator, I should be able to do it for a regular Grey Knight. I just followed other examples of this type of conversion, like USABOB's over on Astronomicon. Here is my finished result.

Simple assembly, using the following parts:
Metal Grey Knight body on 25mm base;
One Space Wolf Hammer (regular, not Terminator);
Straight pin (you can see the pin head at the halberd base);
Space Marine shoulder pad;
Plastic tube;
Space Wolf Terminator Sword (I would have used a SM Scout combat knife, if I'd had one).

Speaking of Grey Knight Terminators, here's a WIP of a squad I'm currently working on. I usually primer my figures in white or light grey, but these came to me primered black. Rather than strip 'em, I decided to try the ol' Citadel how-to painting technique. These will be painted in the standard Grey Knight scheme found in the Daemon Hunters Codex. So far, I've got the Boltgun Metal layer on all, and one has a layer of CeramCoat Metalic Silver (from Michaels, a local craft store). After I took the picture, I coated the other four figs with the CeramCoat Silver.

Finished Veterans

2010-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the group shot of my latest squad of veterans. There’s an extra three here in case I want to try some different weapons options. It’s been a few months since I posted the WIP for these vets. Actually, they’re made up of a few WIP posts. For the bases, I used the cobble stone pattern from my Holiday Basing Ideas post. When painting the bases, I used Ron, From the Warp, Saikowski’s Bloodthirster basing technique which I also used for my Skulltaker. The heads are from my review of the GW Heads Sprue. The plasma guns are my standard conversion. Finally, all the WIPs and techniques have come together and they’re ready for the table.

I'm not sure I'm happy with how the cobblestones worked out. The technique is really designed to simulate marble floors, but I thought it might work here. I'll have to search for methods for painting cobblestones, or come up with another way to do them. I don't plan to rebase these, but will likely try something else next batch.

The colorful backdrop is the tiles I use for painting. They're in need of a clean up, which is as simple as scraping the old paint off using a hard plastic scraper. I know I should use a wet palette, but when I tried a homemade version, I wasn't impressed. When I get to the point I'm using up too much paint, I'll change the name of my blog and try again.

Cheers!

This week's challenge

2010-06-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Only a couple figures to show this week. Up top is a priest with an eviscerator. Got this one in an ebay auction with a bunch of other bits. My son took him to battle last Saturday, within the first few days we had him, and he personally took out a Land Raider in four turns, don't ask me how. I do know he had a squad of IG there to absorb damage. My son came home and said he deserved to be painted right away, so he went to the top of the list. He had been primed rather badly, and in black which I'm not used to painting over. But, I scraped away the thicker stuff and painted him up. I'm right happy with the monk's robe look. I'll call my experiment in brown a success for now. I could never get the skin painted up right and it looks rather ghoulish now. This will cause me to rethink painting another bald guy for quite some time. It also taught me to always strip a primed second hand mini, as some detail is lost and there's some nasty cracks in some places.
The second piece was actually finished up right before the eviscerator priest. It is a conversion from and I-Kore Militia Leader, meant to be a Callidus Assassin. She's about 1/6th GW, as her right arm is actually an Eldar Pilot's arm, with a guardsman pistol hand. The Neural Shredder is a complete conversion, made from a jewel type bead, a bit of sprue, a Tau Firewarrior foot, and some GS to tie them all together. I wasn't sure about it before it was painted up, but I like the finished look. The pads on her upper sleeves are green stuff, meant to match her existing knee pads. I figured she looked roughly American Indian , so tried for that skin tone. Again, not too happy with the face, but the right hand gives me hope that some day I shall be able to do skin well. Now, if only I can remember how I did that...

Now it's back to painting the headless veterans waiting in the wings.

Magnetizing a Rhino / Predator

2010-05-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Friend of my son needed help magnetizing a Predator. I've never built a Predator, may never have done one on my own, so this gave me a chance to give it a try. Not to mention, it was a great excuse to procrastinate instead of hitting the paint pots. Though much of what I did has been seen before, I thought I'd show how I did it. I already had magnets, mainly in sizes 1/16" x 1/16" and 1/8" x 1/8" cylinders, so I concentrated on using these. I actually came about having the 1/16" cylinder magnets by mistake, and often wondered what I was going to do with 500 of them. They've actually been quite useful.

I started with the side sponsons, as I figured most of the work would be involved there. First I drilled out the normal attachment holes on both sides with a 1/8" bit, and glued in the magnets here. I used the 1/16" magnets on the sponson arm, as the arm's width wasn't wide enough for a 1/8" magnet. To ensure a good hold, I doubled up the 1/16" magnets on the arm, both side by side and lengthwise to fit in the arm. You can see the before and after pictures above.

To the right is my method of attaching magnets. Once I glue the sponson arm magnet in place, I put a piece of wax paper over the magnet and let the weapon side magnet attach on, holding the wax paper in place. This way I can glue the next magnet and know it will line up perfectly. For gluing magnets, I often use a metal epoxy called JB Weld. It's magnetic so will surround the magnet as it cures giving a good hold. Wax paper is essential though, as you don't want it surrounding the magnet and bulking up any surfaces you want to keep flat.

Below are the finished pieces.Next up is the turret set up. This is very straight forward, as the pins on the weapon barrels are exactly 1/8", so no drilling on the turret is required. You do want to add some green stuff or glue sprue pieces inside the turret to keep the magnets from being pushed too far in when you glue them in place. For the weapon barrels, simply remove the pins and drill 1/8" holes. Important here to line up the magnets in the proper direction. I actually did not use the wax paper trick on this one and regretted it. I had not inserted the magnet far enough into the turret hole and had to pry it out because there wasn't enough room for the barrel piece to fit in.
For the back of the turret, I used one magnet here. I've seen a lot of folks use two, and that's fine, but as long as you don't use too much paint between turret and box/power pack, one should to be strong enough. My magnets are N50s, which are almost the strongest magnets you can buy, so two may be better if weaker magnets are used.

You can see here and above how I've added magnets to hold the hatches in. Another fairly straightforward magnet application. On the closed hatch and in the turret hole, a piece or two of sprue is required to build it up so the magnets meet at the right spot. I used the SM gunner as the basis for placing the magnet. I wasn't quite happy with the location, as it wasn't quite center. They still rotate, but I made the mistake of using the SM gunner when I lined up the magnets in the hull hatches, so the other fill-in bits don't marry up quite right. You can see what I mean in the Predator top shot, I hope. The right hull hatch hole is centered, so fits everything well. The left hull hatch hole is set back a bit. While the hatches work fine, the other fill in circular bits sit funny, as their magnet is centered. Minor annoyance. The bottom of the turret is what you see here. Filling the hole here is a piece of sprue with a magnet it in. It attaches to either of the two magnets seen on the sprue bits crossing the main hatch. While the hatches themselves have magnets on them to hold them in place, the turret top bit does not. The strength of the turret magnet holds the two sided top bit in place so you can use it either way. If I had the bits to make a Razorback turret, either of the three vehicles could be made from this set up.

The side door and sponson parts are also magnetized. I couldn't figure out a standard way for a single set of magnets to hold both the door and the sponson, so I used different magnets for each. The sponson uses 1/8" magnets in a single location, while the doors use 1/16" in three places two at the top and one at the bottom (bottom not shown). I actually placed the bottom magnet after taking all these pictures because, as you can see in the rhino picture at the top of the page, the bottom of the door hung out. Once painted, the magnets will hardly be noticable.

The back hatch uses 1/16" magnets at the upper corner of the door. The 1/16" magnets are perfect for these doors. They are small enough to fit in the narrow plastic part, and strong enough to hold the lightweight doors in place, but not so strong that you have to struggle to open them. The only bad part is there is little room for error; you need to be careful where you drill.

Nemesis Force Blade Scratch Build

2010-05-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

So as I mentioned in my last post, I've been working on some Deamonhunter allies for my son's Imperial Guard force. I just heard a rumor that the "allies" part of Deamonhunters may disappear with the new codex. I'm hoping that's not the case, as I like the excuse to paint some of these figures up. They give me a good excuse to break from painting up Imperial Guard. What you see in the first picture is the latest addition to the group, namely a standard Grey Knight with Nemesis Halberd. The difference here is that the figure was received second hand and lacked the fighting end of the halberd, so I had to recreate it.

I regret that sometimes, like this time, I get wrapped up in the conversion and I don't think of taking WIP shots until it's too late. I hope with this one though, a picture and explanation may be enough. So in the close-up picture above I've broken down the parts.

I started with the blade, which is simply two pieces of plasticard glued together. You could use a thick piece of plasticard, but I didn't have that. The important thing here is that it has to be thick enough for drilling pinning holes. You need pinning holes for the spikey bit on top, and for attaching to the halberd pole. I used a stock Halberd for sizing up the blade.

Once the blade is finished, shape the edge and build up the pieces at the base of the blade. The spikey bit on top is made from a piece of sprue filed down and pinned with a nail brad. A nail brad is stronger than a paper clip, and strength is needed here. It is also thicker, so some caution is needed so you don't split out the side while you are drilling. The spikey part on the bottom is not a separate piece, but file down after building up with very thin pieces of plasticard on the halberd base. Another piece of sprue is used to make the transition from blade to hand guard. The handguard is simple a thick piece of plasticard. Not seen in the picture, underneath where the purity seal goes (purity seal fell off for the pic), is a round transition piece. In my case, I used a piece of copper wire wrapped around the pin, but a hollow rod could just as easily work. Copper wire from old phone cord is used for the power line.

Here is a side by side comparison picture. This is not the blade I used for sizing up my scratch built blade. The figure was chosen for its more similar pose. There are four different halberds, and I evidently chose the largest size when I sized mine.

Inquisitor Lord Solar Macharius

2010-04-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've had a Solar Macharius mini sitting around in my box for some time. Recently, my son decided he needed Inquisitorial allies to add a little punch to his IG force. I found some Grey Knights which are coming along nicely but still currently Painting in Progress (PIP). He also wanted to have an Assassin, and I happened to have a figure that made a good Callidus stand-in. Trouble with adding assassins is, you need to have an Inquisitor Lord in order to field them. Out of the box came Solar Macharius.

Lord Macharius, a great looking mini, came to us as part of an E-Bay purchase made a while back. He was poorly painted and became a victim in my how to strip minis experiments long ago. On that matter, I use Simple Green to start, for the really tough metal minis I use undiluted citrus cleaner. The citrus cleaner proved to soften plastics, and I never got around to trying it diluted. Regardless, Solar was put back together (minus the cape) and took on his new Inquisitor Lord responsibilities with gusto. A couple weeks ago, before I started Skulltaker, I decided he was ready for a fresh coat of paint. So the the workbench he went. The cape was painted separate from the mini, and glued on when all was finished.

This is my most significant use of red, white, and gold on a mini so far. Not a bad experience, and I am actually more happy with the whites. I started with a light grey primer and the white turned out very easy. One thinned coat of white followed by a light grey wash in the crevices, then a heavy white dry brush. Gold is Shining Gold with a Gryphonne Sepia wash and a Burnished Gold dry brush. The red is Red Gore with a Baal Red wash. Not much to drybrush on the red, as there aren't significant red edges thanks to the gold trim. He's not been clear coated yet either, but that will definitely happen before the next game. The right toe sticks out from the base enough to be a problem with the paint rubbing off.

I am impressed with the level of detail on many of GW's old metal minis, and this is no exception. My only issue with the mini is the huge hands. Also, either the face lacks detail, or I was just unable to pull it out with my painting technique. I know I applied more paint than I would have liked trying to make it look good, and admit I need more practice there. I was talking to a guy at my FLGS who had invested quite a bit in Forgeworld DKOK. A comment he made that stuck with me was that he enjoyed painting them because their faces were mostly covered up and he hated painting faces. I'm not there yet, and still think practice will bring me around at some point.

I think he makes a great Inquisitor Lord, so he'll be filling that role for quite some time. He has quite the impressive record on the table already, so far victorious over the forces of Chaos he's faced upon the field of battle.

Skulltaker

2010-04-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

So, as some of you know, I enjoy building more than painting, and actually don't play though I do enjoy watching a game now and again. Getting a solid block of time where I could play would be a challenge. I build and paint an hour or two at a time, mainly in the evenings and never without interruption. My oldest son does like to play though, so most of my work does get time on the table. His birthday was a couple weeks ago, and there was food and fun for all. He and three of his friends were joined by my youngest and one of his friends for a 2v2v2 game. I don't think they finished the game, but the party was a success.

So now there are at least three birthday parties following his, one of which was yesterday, and all of them have or will involve playing Warhammer 40K. My son wanted to give one of his friends a painted figure, and asked me if I would paint one up. I said I would, providing I got to pick the figure. He agreed, and I chose Skulltaker.

For the base, I borrowed the idea given by Ron over at ++ From the Warp ++. In his post on Bloodthirster base painting, step by step, he showed how he makes bases so they look like they have marble tile. I liked this, and decided to try it out for myself. About the only thing different I did was to not thin the washes as much as he recommended, and I followed up with a thin wash of Gryphonne Sepia toward the end of the painting to tie it all together. Also, painting Skulltaker was not completely done when I attached him to the base. I needed him attached to the base because I used the base to hold the model while I finished painting. You can see in this picture the rubbed-off primer on the sword, which is what I had been holding on to most to this point.

Not having a lot of time to get it painted before the party, and not having much experience with painting red, I also decided to borrow the ideas of another blogger. In this case, I followed pretty closely the Painted Skulltaker tutorial posted by Master Darksol. I like the way he lays out his tutorials, which include a picture a most every step, including the paint used.

The main difference in my effort was that I used light grey primer instead of black. Can't really tell in the finished product. Some other differences are from not having the recommended colors, so I substituted. I also combined a couple of the Heavy Devlan Mud wash steps. There was a point where my way of painting would have painted over a wash, then reapplied the same color wash, so I combined the two wash steps after painting the two areas. When I took these pictures, I noticed I had not done the eyes or teeth yet, and I forgot to take a picture of the finished piece.

Two great tutorials helped a lot here, with a resulting success. He received it yesterday, and was very happy with it.

Regimental Advisers

2010-03-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of the few recent pieces I actually consider finished are these Regimental Advisers. My son wanted to try them out in a game, so we got a set and I painted them up. I liked the looks of the Master of Ordnance and Officer of the Fleet, but I wasn't sure about the Astropath. In the end, that was simple and the one I enjoyed painting the most. After applying white primer, I washed the outside of the cloak a couple times with GW Asurmen Blue, and highlighted with a Vallejo sky blue. The inside of the hood and the sleave cuffs are Bleached Bone with a wash of Gryphonne Sepia. The Astropath has had a sealer applied; I'll seal the other two this weekend.

Painting the medals and outer accouterments on the two officers was an interesting challenge, especially the white gloves. Between those and the uniform, I don't think I've painted that much white on a single mini before. To make things easier, I painted Master of Ordnance's backpack separately, gluing it on right before taking these pictures.

Vets WIP

2010-03-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple months, I've kind of haphazardly been putting things together. One thing I did was to take the "roads" I showed in my Holiday Basing Ideas Post and use them with another vet squad I'm putting together. You can see the WIP here. One odd thing about using these Christmas Village roads is they are very pliable, not rigid like plasticard. While I could cut them with scissors, filing them smooth with the base edge wasn't as easy as I expected.

The squad was put together using SM scout legs, cadian torsos, and a mix of scout, cadian and catachan arms. The flamer is intended to be a heavy flamer version, and connected the new flamer with the back back using red wire from what's inside interior telephone wire. You may also notice there are 10 heads missing here. Once these are painted up, I'll be using the heads I showed in my review of the Games Workshop Head Sprue.

Vendetta Conversion

2010-03-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a WIP of my version of a popular conversion, a Vendetta. For the wing-mounted twin-linked lascannons I've strayed from what I see is the norm by using a razorback turret lascannon. This is an extremely easy conversion as, other than the cable, there is no significant cutting or trimming required. There's already a left and right side lascannon, they're made to fit together side-by-side, and both sides are flat and almost the perfect size for adding a lascannon power supply. Except for the magnet (and nail, explained later), all parts are shown here in the right picture. The finished lascannon in the upper left is how it looks with all parts in place.

For some reason, I was trying to reduce my magnet consumption when I came up with this conversion, so my attachment method may seem odd. However, it does show another way to get it done and, if done correctly, it's quite sturdy. I drilled magnet holes in the wing pylon coming in from the front and back. You can see here they are flat sides to the front and back. Once I glued the magnets in I drilled two other holes straight in and deep. The difference in my method is that I glued a nail in the lascannons, missiles and missile pods, and that guides it and helps hold it in place. You can see the finished result in the picture to the right. The nail pieces fit into the holes and are held in place mostly by magnetism, but also by friction. This not only keeps them in place, but also makes sure they are hanging straight.

I've done it with the other weapons as well, so they can be swapped out at will. There's more involved with this method, but it's a good solid hold and I'm more comfortable with the fit. I made two mistakes while figuring this method out that I would change for the next time. I should have gone with a longer nail, as that would have made for a more solid fit. And, I didn't measure the width between the two holes on each pylon. This leaves me with two sides that are not interchangeable; the left side only works on the left side, and the right only on the right.

The hull weapon conversion is pretty straight forward, using a magnet on a piece of plasticard in the hull nacel. I went ahead and purchased extra hull weapon bits, added to the order during another bitz buy. Minimal work this way, and I still can have a single lascannnon mount, as well as a twin link version. WIP effort pictured here as well. I have some thoughts for the other bits that came with the lascannon bit, but am not sure when I'll be getting around to working that idea. Hopefully that won't linger long.

I need to finish off the crew, and work out some bugs with the way my heavy bolters connect, then the Valkyrie will be ready for final painting. More to come on this, hopefully soon.

Armored Basilisk Conversion

2010-02-23T13:01:00.000-08:00

My apologies for not posting in a while. After getting caught up from the holidays, I found I was getting frustrated with my paint pot procrastinating. As busy as I stay with building and converting, and even getting a start to the painting, I still run into a painters block and can't seem to get things finished. Rather than post unfinished stuff, I held off in hopes I'd finish and be able to post a complete project. So far, no good. I've decided to post my WIP here, in hope that you all will forgive my painters block for a while.

First up is my Armored Basilisk Conversion. You might remember my post a while back about double tracking the new Hellhound hull. I had noted I was working on something I'd show later. This is the something. In the top picture you can see I used a Shadowsword turret assembly as the basis for an armored Basilisk. The turret is too wide to fit the standard Chimera hull, so some modification was needed to make it work. The picture to the right is the WIP for the double tracking of the hull I discussed in a previous post. The old Chimera sides made it too wide, so I used the new Chimera sides. It actually works quite well.

The next challenge was to make the barrel assembly. I didn't want to just plop a Shadowsword top on a widened Chimera hull. Plus I was getting the big parts from bitz buys and wanted to limit my purchases. So I scratch-built the barrel using a writing pen tube, an Xacto blade protector, and barrel bits from an old style Demolisher. I found a large plastic bushing to transition from barrel to turret. A nail holds it in place, allowing the barrel to elevate. The turret doesn't rotate, which begs the question, “Is it still a turret?” My original barrel-to-hull transition was cumbersome, and would have complicated making the turret rotate, so I decided not to try. I wished I’d rethought when I change to the bushing, because I think making it rotatable, like modern self propelled artillery, wouldn’t have been that much more effort. If I can get the bitz cheap, I may try it.

As you can see, there's a fair amount of card stock involved. I've had plain plastic stock saved up for a while, but I didn't hesitate to use other stock of opportunity. In this picture, you can see a used gift card. The blue pieces are punch-outs from an electrical circuit box and are supposed to be vents. The clear pieces were once a twist off top to a drink bottle, and will be tail/backup lights and perhaps a place to add some markings. I broke one of the antennas off before I was even done with it, and both are now magnetized.

Two more pictures to show the front and other side. While the intent was to magnetized the hull weapon, instead of adding a magnet I glued a piece of metal under the hole. I figured the magnet would be strong enough, but now I miss the holding power of using two. For instance, I’m not sure where the HB I magnetized, missing in these latest pics, has gone. Yep, magnet on both sides from now on…

Holiday Basing Deals

2009-12-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Way back in May, Col. Corbane over at Corbania Prime gave great tutorial about Plasticard bases. I've yet to try the technique yet, but I do remember trying to find a ready source of stone patterned plasticard. I couldn't find it in my local stores, and never got around to searching out online sources. I was looking through the local arts and crafts store the other day and found a great deal where I wasn't looking. Sometimes I get lucky. What I found was roads you can buy for the little Christmas villages. Normally selling for four dollars (US), they were on clearance for half off. So, I bought the last set. They also had snow, but I don't have plans to use snow on my bases (yet).

You get two in a pack. For some reason, this company packaged two different roads together. Seems to me, even in a Christmas village, you'd want your roads to be the same, but that wasn't an option. I plan to base at least my vet squads on the cobble stone pattern. And will probably use the brick version for heavy weapon squads or other mini using 60 mm bases. The pattern is a bit wider than I would like to have, but with a little extra debris rolled in, it should look just fine. I rolled these out and put a ruler on them so you can see the size. They are each 18 inches long by 2.5 inches wide. That's a lot of plastic base material for two dollars. I placed some bases down to get an idea as to coverage. They are wide enough for 60 mm bases. With good planning, they can pump out quite a few 25 mm bases as well.

My next vet squad is waiting for me to finish vehicles I'm currently working on. It's busy this time of year, so it will probably be after the holidays before I can actually try these out. Just wanted to get the word out about keeping your eyes open for good basing holiday deals.

Again, a how to on basing with these can be found at Corbania Prime: Tutorial : Plasticard bases.

Basilisk: More WIP

2009-12-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Amongst the four models on my work bench now (not counting various infantry in the paint pot queue), is this standard Basilisk. I posted a WIP a few weeks ago. After two tone painting a few Leman Russ tanks, I've decided my standard paint scheme needed a small bit of light grey. The main two colors on my vehicles are a gray spray primer and a camo tan Krylon paint for plastics. Since this Basilisk was the first planned from the outset as three colors, I decided to start with a light grey base coat. I then taped the areas needing to remain light grey, and followed with a coat of dark grey. Another taping (over the original), and follow up with the final coat of camo tan.

While I like how it turned out, I found I tend toward applying heavy coats of spray. I guess I wanted to be sure I got a solid, even coat all around, but this can lead to some thick areas where the third coat is applied. Some of the tape lines needed smoothing as well. Frankly it probably isn't much different than I'd have achieved brushing it on, so I'm not concerned about this particular piece. I will however take a lighter touch on the next try.

I am also considering applying the light grey last. The light grey overlaps the other two colors, so that would require removing the previous tape and reapplying for the final coat. Something I had hoped to avoid by spraying light grey first, but I think applying it last would thin the paint over most of the model.

As you can tell from my earlier post about it, this Basilisk is the victim of my Paint Pot Procrastination because of another distraction on the workbench, a Valkyrie. I couldn't resist detailing the inside, and have probably put more time into it than I will the outside. A shame considering the outside will be seen much more than the inside, but I really enjoy the detail GW put into it and wanted to do it up nice. One thing I relearned here is the sticking power of primer over straight paint. To be sure of a strong bond where the hull pieces will attache, I removed the grey primer along the edges. It took a bit of scraping to get it all. Scraping regular paint from plastic means big chunks at a time. Paint over primer is much more stubborn. Really hit home the need to prime first.

Terrain: Dragons Teeth Tank Traps

2009-11-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

Back in June, FoxPhoenix provided a great tutorial about making Tank Traps using an ice tray. Now, I'd heard of the idea before, but could never find a good sized tray to use. Before I had a chance to go find one one, one found me. I had bought a mini fridge for the basement and a mini ice tray came with it.

Being the cheap bugger that I am, I searched my home improvement leftovers cabinets for a good plaster alternative. I found I had some a bit of concrete patch mix and tried that. It was a bit brittle, and I didn't want to chance that with something that was going to get tossed around a bit. So, instead of using water to mix it, I used leftover white latex paint. Worked like a charm. They're actually very sturdy to blunt force, but they can easily be holed with a sharp point and 'fractured' out from that.

I still had a bit of backer board from an old kitchen cabinet, so I cut a odd piece and glued some of my new Dragons Teeth down and added debris in the form of sprue pieces, bitz, and some pieces from the GW Basing Kit. Quick paint work in my standard basing style and it's done!

Imperial Guard Heavy Bolter

2009-11-16T10:01:00.001-08:00

Here's another Imperial Guard Heavy Weapon Team that's been waiting out my Paint Pot Procrastinating. An experiment in miniature diorama making that's been done for quite some time. One advantage to basing like this is the built in protection it provides. It's going to take a bit of effort to break the pieces off the base. It could become a problem though if I'm trying to put the piece inside a building or other tight spot. Hasn't been an issue yet.

Unfortunately, there is another form of "protection" that could raise concern on the playing field. I had built it for a fun look. It had slipped my mind when I started it that an opponent could protest about my piece having its own built in cover. This is something Dverning recently, and conveniently, brought up in his blog about Playing Fair with Conversions. Luckily, over half of the base is open on one side. If there is any concern, we can expose the side without cover toward the opposing force.

Double Tracking the new Hellhound Hull

2009-11-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided to build an armored basilisk. In my typical eureka fashion, I thought up something I haven't seen done, and am somehow finding a way to make it work. I'll cover the basic idea in another post, once I get a bit farther along. I don't want to give it all up right away. Though I hadn't originally planned to widen the tracks, the bits I decided to use for the armored part require it. After a couple experiments, this is what I came up with.

To widen the tracks of the old Chimera/Hellhound kit, you simply glued road wheels side by side and glued the track to that. While that probably could still work, you'd have to find a new source of road wheels, as the new kit doesn't use them. The new Hellhound sides come with spacers that fit together, one side is a "male," the other is a "female." So, first off, you need to make them both "female" as shown in the top photo. You need to make the new holes the same size as the old ones, so keep that in mind.

Next, find eight nails with the same diameter, and cut them the length of two pieces of tank tread side by side. If you can't find a nail the right diameter, like me, you'll need to get one a little larger and file it down a bit. It needs to be a snug fit.

The third picture shows the width of the standard Hellhound side piece. The next picture is of the widened side piece, having the nails as spacers. The nails, tightly fitted in the spacer holes, give you the rigidity you need to remove any play in the finished side piece. If they end up moving around too much, you're going to start loosing tread pieces. We don't want that.

Next up is the treads themselves. It's not good enough to simply glue two pieces of tread together. One strong push on the joint and you'll break the glue join. Also, the edges of the tread has natural gaps, which would allow you to "see-through" them once finished. While there may be other ways to do this, I chose to use some old two-part epoxy I had laying around and connect them together as shown in the fifth picture.

The sixth picture shows a partially finished wide track side. If you look close, you can see the epoxy poking up through the tread. Please ignore the plasticard attachment, for now. You'll see what that's for in a later post.

One shame to note. There is absolutely no difference in the new tracks than the old. They are exactly the same, down to every hinge and tread pad. What you see here are actually old treads I had lying around. And, although they look a bit different, the sides have the same overall dimensions. The fact that the tread lines up perfectly once assembled shames me, as I could never get them to do that with the old road wheel system. Kudos to GW for improving this part of the kit.

Basilisk WIP

2009-11-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

So, I purchased a Basilisk on eBay a while back. I had always had good luck with my eBay purchases. That was not the case here. It was pretty bad off. Most of the back end and some gun carriage parts were broken or missing, and there was glue in too many places. I now buy only un, or partly, finished stuff. The sides were still salvageable, as was the gun itself. Shortly after this purchase, I was lucky to get a couple more Basilisks still on the sprue for a steal. Unfortunately, they mostly sat waiting for their time to be built. I was inspired recently to build an armored Basilisk; now still very much WIP, to be covered soon. Many of the parts I won't be needing on the armored variant are exactly what I needed to flip the ruined piece. Here is the WIP.

This is pretty much the standard Basilisk. I don't like the tall shield, so cut that down a bit. It's got some old pewter pieces thrown in, and I've still got some little adjusting to do, but it's pretty much done. I did try a little something different with the back. I added some window screen to fill in the gap between floor and hand rail. Last thing the crew wants is a wayward round rolling off the back. Plus, it's a great place to hang their packs and other assorted gear. Note the backpack in the lower left will be hanging off one of the side hand rails after it's all painted.

One thing I've been concerned with for my own Basilisks was the ladder on the back end. It's a very breakable piece, just hanging out the back by two fragile pieces of plastic. Even a Forge World example shows this break point (see bottom picture here). So, I gave it a bit of thought and came up with an idea for a "hinge." I drilled a hole through one of the round bits you find on the back of every sprue, sliced pieces of the round, trimmed a flat end and glued it to where the ladder usually connects, where the rivets are. I trimmed, rounded and holed each top of the ladder, and connected it all together with the head of a pin. Now I can flip it over to a somewhat safer area for transit. I had hoped it would lay over flat, but I didn't get it trimmed right. I didn't want to adjust this one anymore, as that would just weaken the remaining plastic. I still think it's possible to get it to lay flat, and will give it another go when I finally get around to building my other standard Basilisk.

Terrain - Power Plant or Shield Generator

2009-11-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted. Between work and other hobbies, blogging took a back seat. My regrets for that. For a while, I felt I hadn't really been up to much. Then I got the camera out and realized I had done quite a bit. It seems there's still a lot waiting out my Paint Pot Procrastinating, so I hope to make it up to you with a flurry of posting. This is the first of four unrelated posts in four days. Enjoy!

First up is a bit of terrain, shown above. The second picture here shows the basic material; a piece of masonite (from the back of an old cabinet) and the plastic from a box of cookies. I'm always about flexibility, so chose to make three pieces instead of one. This lets us adjust the terrain for small or large games.

After cutting the individual parts into three equal parts, add a bit of basing material, prime paint and voila, three pieces of terrain that fit together to make one if needed. Given a wider choice of material, I would have preferred a taller piece. So, now I'm on the lookout for a box of really big cookies!

Mortar Squad

2009-10-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

So, after sitting in various stages of completion, I finally cracked down and finished this mortar squad. One of my biggest distractions with 60mm bases is the urge to make a complex little scene out of them. I hope to grow out of this urge before too long. It takes far to long to get them on the table this way. I can remember commenting when reading Hal'jin's series, I Hate Right Hands, that the mortar holding right hand was another alternative. Out of this whole squad, the guy holding binos is the only one that does not use the mortar holding right hand from the heavy weapons sprue. While I didn't start these to show how this right hand could be used in other ways, here's some examples.

In the picture above, the one on the left has been just shy of being done for over a year. The problem with paint pot procrastinating on this team was a change in my army colors. Originally painted in standard Cadian 8th colors, I later decided I preferred grey armor over green, so I repainted the crew. The basing also didn't match my newer style, so I gave it a wash and a new drybrush, but is still a ways off. The brick wall is made from spackle (the all purpose basing material) with a bit of other basing experiments mixed in. The crew has some mods, the most notable being hand swaps for both, and a new leg job on the guy holding the binos. The left leg is from a kneeling figure, and is now propped up on the wall. One thing I don't like about the mortar holding hand is that it is designed for a kneeling figure, and doesn't allow for a two handed hold on the round. A quick hand swap here fixes that issue.

The next featured team is on the base I showed in my earlier article about using latex paint chips as basing material. It's since had a wash made from GW terracotta, and the figures added of course. This one is intended to show one of the crew re-aiming the mortar, and the other impatiently waiting to load the next round. The aiming mortarman's hand is the standard mortar holding hand, with the mortar drilled out. I did play with the idea of simply removing the adjusting wheel on the mortar itself and having the remaining mortar body serve as proxy. Either way works, though the proxy would have been easier. The right mortarman still holds the mortar, but with the hand swapped to a different arm. He, like the last crew, likes to keep two hands on the round.

This little mini-diorama has one mortarman continuing to annoy the enemy while the other prepares new rounds for the next volley. This crew took a little more effort in the form of scratch building the boxes. Heavy weapons sprues come with a spare mortar round, and I wanted to do something with the few I've collected. I'm not comfortable leaving mortar rounds lying about on the ground, so I built boxes to hold them. Actually, I cheated a bit; the bottom box is empty. I got lazy and used the standard mortar holding right arm on the standing guardsman. The kneeling one's right hand has the mortar drilled out, which makes an excellent lid holding hand. I hadn't really noticed before, but their left hands are the same also. I had built a little crow bar for the crew to use opening the boxes, but I seem to have misplaced it. Hoping I can find that before it's time to vacuum under my chair.

Playing with my camera for these shots, I discovered it has a "vivid" setting (right next to Sepia) in its "My Colors" menu. Although it tends to point out my painting faults, I'll continue to make use of that in the future.

Games Workshop Heads Sprue

2009-10-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

So, GW comes out with some new bitz for Imperial Guard and I decided I needed some Aquilas for my Vanquisher Barrel Conversion. The ones that come with the Leman Russ kits are a tad long. I contacted my FLGS to get some ordered, and when I picked them up I took a look at the new heads sprue as well. Now, seeing these on the GW site is less than convincing. After all, the pic there silver on a white background; you can’t really tell what they’re about. Looking at them through the packaging isn’t much better. So, I took a chance and bought the only set my FLGS had. Thought I’d post them up here for others to view.

My first picture is of the basic sprue, here to provide a better close up for you than what GW offers. The second is the sprue based (white) with a wash of Ogryn Flesh. I painted them on the sprue to make it easier to show here, and perhaps save me a bit of time later. The third shot is painted, minus the finished optics and clear coat. The last two are front and back of the clear-coated, finished set.

Now, I’m not the best minis face painter out there, but I hope I did fair enough to give the curious a better idea as to the potential of these. My plan is to use them on a future veteran squad. Knowing I’d have to do a fair bit of handling after removing them from the sprue, I went ahead and clear coated. I was surprised to see the change it does to minis, like softening up the powdery look from drybrushing, and even lightening up the overall look. It also reminded me that one of my biggest concerns with clear-coating is that I’d have forgotten to paint an important detail, like teeth.

Now, the Aquilas? Well, they look good from the front, but are extremely thick for my tastes. I’m trying to figure out how to hold them down while I file them a bit thinner. Any ideas would be appreciated.

More free basing ...

2009-09-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

Last March, Ron Saikowski published a basing article about using free basing material you can find just about anywhere. While I was always using ordinary sand, I now keep my eyes open for anything else that may work. Nothing I've found so far is very different from what Ron used in that article. Some of the best stuff I'd found so far was very rocky sand from a local river beach; great for rubble-strewn city terrain.

A few weeks ago, I was doing a little home improvement in the way of painting a ceiling. I had started late and left a thin layer of paint to dry overnight in the disposable roller tray. In the process of cleaning this up the next day, I noticed the paint had cracked and some had separated from the tray. Disposable trays are very thin plastic and the paint, being less flexible, didn't stick very well. I saw some potential in this, separated as much as I could, and broke it into manageable pieces for later use.

The beauty of this stuff is, you can leave it in big chunks for large terrain pieces, or break it up even further for basing your smaller pieces. Another bonus is that its latex paint. You don't really even need to prime it, and if you do, it won't melt like foam. A disadvantage is you can only make it so thick, so it won't readily work if you're looking for thick-walled rubble.

My first test was on a mortar team. I needed to break it up a bit into smaller pieces, but it breaks apart very easily into random shapes. I just grabbed the biggest piece and broke off small chunks till I ran out, then grabbed the next biggest piece until I had a decent pile. Gluing it to the base required applying it in layers, so involves a little more time than plain sand/gravel, but came out looking fairly decent. I added a topping of sand to the pile and remaining open area, then primed, and finished. In the top picture, you can see the final product, minus the team itself (currently WIP).

This has made me pick up a bad habit though. I painted a wall in that same room the other day, and purposely left some extra paint in the tray in order to have more "rubble" for the next project.

Vanquisher Barrel Conversion

2009-09-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Col. Hessler asked if anyone knew a good way to extend the LR barrel. He's planning to build a Vanquisher. I had actually been playing with this idea for a bit, and finally got to the point I could share. While this particular project didn't involve a standard LR tube, I did have a FW Conqueror turret that needed a barrel extension. So that is what I'm using here. The LR tube is about the same diameter, so this should work with that as well. My limitation was it needed to be removable, so this barrel isn't permanently attached.

What I did was to find a hard plastic Bic style pen tube and took the ink and ball-point parts out. Next I held it to the end of the Conqueror tube and measured the length. I actually have a similar FW Vanquisher turret, so I used that length for reference. I then angled the end of the new barrel as seen in the top picture. After experimenting with various plastic parts, what I ended up using was a 1/4 inch copper coupling (50 cents at the local home improvement center). While the inner diameter is a tad large, the outer diamer is perfect. I found a soft plastic bushing to help fill in the gap, but Green Stuff would work fine here as well. I also had to fill in a bit to transition from coupler to barrel.

To build up the front of the barrel, I used some leftover metal tape I had from a home improvement project. This is very thin, very smooth stuff, which works good for this conversion. Thin strips of plastic card might work as well, but I was concerned with how well the glue would hold so went with the tape. I cut two lengths of different widths, using the wider width on the bottom. A bit of glue over where the tape ended to fill the gap, and there you have it.

Sentinels

2009-08-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a recently completed trio of sentinels, with an armored sentinel on the left following two scout sentinels. The one in the middle has been done for a couple months. The other two I just finished up last week. The armored sentinel is the Steel Legion version, with extra armor on the legs. Extra points for anyone who can recognize the source of those. All three sport a very simple painting technique. First apply a coat of grey primer, mask with Play-Do, add a coat of tan camouflage paint (Krylon Fusion spray), add additional colors/highlights to suit, finish with P3 tank wash, and highlight where needed. All weapons are magnetized, but the armored variant's plasma and missile launchers are (currently) only useable on this particular model. What missile launcher, you ask?

Why, this one of course, shown here in a side by side with its plasma cannon self. The missile launcher is from the Dark Angels Ravenwing accessory sprue. The plasma cannon is the one from the Space Marines Devastator box. I had planned for these conversions before the new sentinel box came out, but only recently fount time to make it. The missile launcher was a fairly straight forward conversion, the most difficult parts being where to cut the missile pod arm and drilling for the magnets. The plasma cannon arm was a bit more challenging.

The basic bitz are from the SM Devastator set. The cabling just wasn't going to work for this conversion, as it was designed to curve around a SM torso. So they and the arm were removed. Finding the replacement cable was easy, as I had leftovers from a long completed electrical project. While the thinner red wire was good to go, making the blue into articulated cabling required more effort. I needed to cut roughly equal lengths in the wire's outer insulation without pushing the insulation off the end, and avoid cutting the inner copper wire. Easy enough to do, but a bit time consuming. The nice thing about doing it this way was, once spaced, friction pretty much kept the insulation pieces in place, even after some rough handling.

Cutting to length was the next challenge. I attached the magnets first, in order to free up my hands for fitting the wire. Once I had the desired wire length, I drilled holes in the power pack and the cannon's front receptacle, stripped a short bit of insulation from the end of the wires, added a bit of glue, and inserted the wire center into the drilled holes, much like pinning. After the glue dried, I bent the wire until I was happy with how it looked. It's rigid enough to hold its shape when the plasma cannon is being attached or removed from the Sentinel. Just to be sure, I added some super glue to help with that. In hindsight, I would have spread the gap a bit wider to better show off the wire core.

Though using a plasma cannon from the new Sentinel kit would probably have been much easier, I'm happy with the results of this conversion. Always nice to know there’s different options.

Modeling a real vehicle.

2009-08-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

So I seem to have fallen off the net for a bit, but it was not for having nothing to do. The company I work for supports Marine Corps acquisition efforts, and a project officer was leaving after three years. The support team wanted to give something unique, a reminder of the effort. A model of the vehicle, called a Ground Sensor Surveillance Vehicle (GSSV), was the ideal memento, but the team didn't have anyone that could make it happen. Fortunately, I found out about it and wanted to give it a try. The photo here was the goal, and it needed to be 1/72 scale. Unfortunately, I only had about three and a half weeks to purchase the basic kit and make the conversion. I readily admit I'm not the quickest with construction, conversion and ultimately painting. Frankly, I wasn't sure I was up to the task, given the short time period and other commitments. This had to be done on my own time.

I started out by researching what HMMWV kits are available in 1/72 scale. The most modern version I could find was this M1114 version made by Dragon. As you can see from the box art, it’s the armored hatch back variant. While there was enough similarity, there was still a lot to do to make it a GSSV. Before I started I had already lost a week volunteering at a Boy Scout event and finding the model. Luckily, I was able to find it at a local hobby store. It has been a while since I worked with such a small scale, but the small size actually turned into an advantage. It meant I didn't have to go into excruciating detail to present a creditable version.

Essentially, what I had to do was to remove the model's hatch back and replace it with the boxy structure at the back. I made the back using some plastic card (actually, a hotel room card key) around a frame of squared GW sprues and some green stuff to smooth the edges. Another challenge was the radio and IED antennas, which were done using round sprue bits from the Dragon kit. The larger antennas were straight sprue, the smaller ones were done by softening the round sprue over heat and stretching it to the required diameter and length. The thimble shaped IED antenna at the back was also made using sprue bits from both GW and the Dragon kit. Had I another week, I would have fixed the windows too, but just didn't have the time to make that happen. The end result is pictured here on a base made out of foam board with simple basing of glue, sand and paint.

Another challenge was how to best present it. This wasn't part of the initial request, and I hadn't really considered it much when I first offered to build it. The more I worked on it though, the more I felt it needed something. Not only to protect it from being handled, but to provide an attractive display. It was a going away memento after all, so couldn't rightfully be handed over as a fragile finished model. I wrestled with how to do this as I'd never had to meet his requirement before. It needed to be inexpensive, and I had passed the window for ordering one, assuming I could even find something online. The small size and tall antennas were limiting factors, and most of what I was finding was either too short, or had too big a base. Luckily, I made another trip to Michaels and happened down an aisle I hadn't been before. I found a glass jar made for holding shells or other small collectables. While the lid was glass, it was a friction hold using soft plastic. I figured by turning it upside down, and covering up the soft plastic with card stock and the memento information, it would still have enough friction to hold and make a very nice display. It worked very well and was presented last week. It was a big hit.

Other than the cost of materials, there was no money involved. So while this wasn't "commission" work, it is the first work I've done for someone else. It sports the same colors I use on my Imperial Guard vehicles, so I did manage some work on models already waiting their turn at the paint pot. A couple Leman Russ' were primed, and I finished two sentinels last night. I'll post them up the middle of next week.

Conversion - Imperial Guard Jetpacks

2009-06-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

When I set out to put together my Vet squad, I had in the back of my mind the idea to give them Jetpacks. Not that I have a Valkyrie in my inventory yet, but the plan is to give these guys some more fluff when the defense budget allocates funds for air transport. You can see on the left the end result of my effort and on the right the inspiration for it, a Forgeworld Elysian jetpack. I wanted my vets to have a combination jet and back pack, so mine ended up being a bit bigger.

This conversion starts out with a pack of Chaos Jetpacks. Of course, all the chaos-y symbols and pointy bits need to be removed first, and to get them a bit shorter I took out the bottom pair of thrusters. I also removed the round thrusters from the top, as I wanted them to look more like the Forgeworld example. It took a couple weeks before inspiration hit me on how to achieve this without a lot of effort and preferrably using something readily available. What first came to mind is to use the rounded ends of sprues, as shown in this picture. These are ideal, because they are the right shape and size to pull this off. Unfortunately, unless you've been saving empty sprues, there is usually not enough available to complete a squad of jet packs. Additionally, they come in different sizes, and the thinner ones are too small. So, what else is there to use? Not so easy, but certainly as cheap and usable, is using a sanding bit and "converting" cut sprue ends to round sprue ends, then cut to desired length. The advantage here is they are all the same size, and you can cut them to whatever length you prefer.

As I was going for the back pack look, I also removed a lot of the symbols, hoses, fans and other obvious jet pack bits, and hauled out the last of my green stuff. I tried to create a soft, fabric looking pack, using SM belt pouches for the outer pockets. While this was simple enough, it was a bit time consuming. So I switched over to a sleek, more aerodynamic, "aluminum case" design. You can see this version in the picture here. You can also see the top thrusters before they were attached. The little silver bit on the thruster was found in my wife's bead box. I was looking for a small bead to use here, but she didn't have anything small enough. I found instead what is called a crimping bead. It looks good, but it's long and requires drilling into the sprue bit to make it work. Being designed to crimp, cutting wasn't an option with the tools I had. Were I to visit a bead store to find more, I'd choose a small bead or at least a shorter version of the crimping bead.
Here is the collection of 8 of 10 finished, partially-painted IG jetpacks. All total, there are six "hard cased" packs, two plasma (or melta) packs, one grenade launcher pack and one comm pack. The comm pack started out as a Vox caster, with some rearranging of the extras, an added soft pack on the bottom, and jets on the sides. The jet struts were simply cut off the Chaos jetpack, glued to the comm pack, and then the sprue thrusters added.

And here's a view of two finished ones for size comparison. They're a little bigger than my initial vision of them, but not so much that I'd reconsider the design. This was a relatively simple conversion. The only concern, other than the green stuff work, is the need to build up the back a little to allow the top bulge to clear the figure's head. I used scrap plasticard to do this. Like many of my projects, they're waiting for me to quit procrastinating with the paint pots.

Conversion: Tau Fire Warriors to IG Veterans

2009-06-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

I made a vet squad for my entry at The Realms of Equinox: Attention! contest, which closes up today. While it doesn't look like I'll pull victory from the jaws of defeat, I enjoyed the challenge. You can be sure I'll be watching his site for future contests.

What follows is the basic idea behind converting my vets, using Tau Fire Warriors and Space Marine Scout bitz. I had seen this idea for converting Tau Fire Warriors into drop troops a while back, and had purchased a set with that goal. As the new IG codex made drop troops less usuable, I decided to use the set to make a squad of veterans. The Fire Warriors for the most part are the same size as the Cadian plastics, and provide different poses as well. The biggest issue with converting them is they have hooves instead of feet, and three fingered hands. The legs come in five poses, four of which are shown in the following picture. For this conversion, I stayed with the Tau torso, but wanted to make it look less Tau. So, I broke out my green stuff and added a thin layer of "armor" at the top. Now, I doubt I'll ever be an accomplished GS sculptor, but this was a very simple addition so I was able to manage quite easily. You can see the old and new torso comparison below.
The three fingered Tau hands were easy to fix using hand swaps or creative filing. The biggest challenge was changing hooves to feet. What I should have done is used Catachan or Cadian feet, like in the left photo. They are the perfect size for this conversion. As I had just finished a bunch of Cadians, I actually found I didn't have enough spares to go around. The budget was low, so I found WFB Chaos Marauder legs, like in the right photo, go very cheep. The upside is they provided my vets a different style of foot wear, which partly fit my goal to make them stand out on the table. I even kept the fur bands some of them have, to show some more individuality. The down side is the feet and ankles are actually a little bigger than their IG counterparts, so some tweeking of the armor and fur is needed to fit the narrower Tau leg. A couple poses also required foot/ankle angle changes.

The Fire Warrior set comes with enough torso parts to make twelve figures, and enough legs to make fifteen. I've only made ten vets so far, so I've used the extra parts to show "before and after" style pics. The legs used in these plasma gun poses were actually the hardest conversions of the lot, because of the unique angle of the feet. These leg sets required a left foot angle that did not have a comparable one from the Chaos Marauders, so I cut at the ankle and did a bit of filing and refitting. To get the right foot to work for the kneeling set, I had to sculpt over the Tau foot using green stuff. It may be the reason I only made one kneeling figure. I like to think I'll use them to make a vet heavy weapon squad later.

The next two are very simple conversions; they are almost standard GW figures stances in all the lines. You can also see on the Sergeant where I've used the Tau right arm and the Space Marine Scout left arm. I did this with most of the squad. To add additional markings identifying them as vets, there is a vertical red stripe on the left shoulder pad. The Sergeant's pistol is a Catachan variant, slightly modified with a Tau FW faceplate on the back. The grenade launcher is Cadian. The left pistol grip is from a left handed SM plasma pistol, and is on the bottom instead of the side.

Cost wise, it was more than a standard squad. But then, a veteran squad should stand out, and that always takes some extra bitz. I'm still scouring my box for canteens, ammo pouches and other accessories to finish them up, but they are otherwise ready for the table. So, all in all, another good conversion experience for me.

Plasma Backpack

2009-06-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, my last entry showed a Plasma Gun conversion I did for my squad entry in The Realms of Equinox: Attention! contest. I had forgotten to take pictures of my Plasma Gun backpacks, so I thought I'd catch up here for those interested.

I used a Vox Caster for this, just a slight modification from Hal'jin's (42nd Cadian) Plasma Gun conversion. Where he used the whole Vox, I only used the top part, with some green stuff and a bit from a Tau Pulse Rifle. I removed the antennas and loud speaker, as well as the bottom part of the caster. I may be able to use that part for a demolition pack or some other future conversion, so its back into the bit box for that. I used Hal'jin's method of repositioning the donut antenna's gauge to the other side. Just for an additional bit of change, I made an extra bottom part out of green stuff, and used the round part off the end of a Tau Pulse Rifle in the center of it. Next I'll run a wire from the gauge part to the bottom nob of the Plasma Gun, and it's finished.

Speaking of catching up, below is a picture of a standard IG squad (minus a Sergeant) that has been waiting since early May to be finished. Worried about finishing my contest entry on time, I had put them aside. A WIP pictures of these guys, and a bunch of their comrades, can be seen in an earlier blog entry. I have always completely assembled my figures prior to painting, but for these I painted the canteens/ammo pouches/scabbards/etc off separately. Painting them, and around them, had always been frustrating. This will be how I paint accessories in the future, as it was so much easier. I had forgotten how close I was to finishing them up; a bit more highlighting, a touch up of wash, and now they're ready for the clear coat.

I plan to show one more conversion I did for my vets, probably early next week. Waiting for me on the painting table are two plus more squads, three Leman Russ varients with an extra turret or two. In between, based on popular demand, I'll put together something to show my Rough Rider bike conversions, probably around the first week in July.

Bitzbox Plasma Gun Conversion

2009-06-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

This is the second tutorial based on the vet squad for my entry at The Realms of Equinox: Attention! contest. Please visit and vote for your favorite squad. Watch his site for future challenges, he’s had some great ideas for contests.

The last tutorial was for Bullpup Las Guns/Carbines. This one’s for Plasma Guns. I have not seen this method before, so hope to give you another option for creating Plasma Guns from your bitz box bric-a-brac.

For my vets, I used a lot of Tau Fire Warrior parts, but there’s none of that here. For this conversion, you’ll need some boltguns, either standard Space Marine or from the Space Marine Scout set, and Plasma Pistols. Here are three of many Boltgun options available:
Plasma Pistols usually come with two options. A right hand, and a left hand (note this picture is not in the same scale as the Boltguns):
You’ll need to cut them on the lines as shown below. Make sure you hold on to the flash suppressor and whatever that small bit is above it. You’ll need it later. For those of you comfortable with a blade, you don't have to cut the upper left corner bit on the Boltgun off. I left mine on because I liked that look better, but it can be glued back on too.

Take the pieces and put them together to get something like the following. The front of the Plasma Pistol fits very nicely to the front of the Boltgun. You’ll probably have to finagle the plasma energy bar into place. The flash suppressor fits where you cut the magazine off, with the little bit on the bottom (optional). I made a backpack for these using a Vox Caster. I regret I didn't plan a tutorial for the backpack, as I'd taken the basic idea from Hal'Jin's (42nd Cadian) Plasma Gun conversion, except I only used the top part of the Vox with some green stuff and a bit from a Tau Pulse Rifle.Once you've got the pieces cleaned and ready, you can install and paint, like I’ve done below. Again, I can't show the whole figure until the contest is over, so here’s some close-ups for WIP purposes. If you want to see the whole set, go visit TRoE's blog. Please vote for your favorite squad while you are there.

Bitzbox Bullpup Las Carbines: a tutorial

2009-06-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

I made a vet squad for my entry at The Realms of Equinox: Attention! contest. It is my first entry in one of his contests, and I was quite surprised to see there were only two entries. He has some great ideas for contests, so I recommend watching his site for future challenges. This is what's been keeping me busy for the last month. I wasn't sure I was going to make the cut off, but made it with about 15 minutes to spare. The other entry, very creative and nicely detailed, is by Itkovian, over at Not Yet Done.

Over the next few days, I hope to show how I did some of the conversions I did for my vets. The first I have ready is a Bullpup Las Carbine.

For my vets, I used a lot of Tau Fire Warrior parts, and here was no exception. I had seen something similar a while back, and had actually bought many of the parts I needed prior to the contest. Whoever was the inspiration behind this idea used Forge World parts, which I didn't have the time or funds to invest in. Without these bits, I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but Craig's Shotgun Tutorial, over at King's Standard Bearer, provided some much needed inspiration.

Like Craig, I started out with what every Imperial Guard collector has lying around in quantity, the standard IG las gun. For my conversions, I used some Tau weapons, complete with their three fingered trigger hands. In order to avoid this distraction here, I've used Tau and Cadian weapons that don't have hands on them. Starting with one of each weapon, chop them off as shown with the red lines in the left picture, and use the parts shown in the right picture:

The reason why I cut the IG las gun the way I did was because I wanted to keep the top sight assembly AND the skull and wings. If you want to keep it easy and don't want the insignia, just cut the las gun so you keep the top sight assembly together (you will need to reposition the barrel if you go this way). If you want the insignia, and have an extra scope lying about, you can forget the upper sight assembly and just tack on a site to the top (with this method, you can also make a shorter carbine). Either way, it's simple enough from there if you just move the location of the L-shaped cut in the stock. You can also deepen the L-shaped cut if you want the butt stock a little higher.

So, once you've got the pieces cleaned up and ready for installation, you get a nice Bullpup Las Carbine, shown here with a regular las gun for reference. Glue's still wet here, so it will get cleaned up later on.
Some of you might have wondered why there were extra red line cuts on the Tau Carbine above. One of the notes in the new Codex offered that veterans have access to unique equipment. To help show this, I created a new type of binocular for one of them. I got the pieces from the extra cuts shown above, and here's a closer look.

In the above picture, the two parts needed are on the right. You don't need the whole gun barrel, only the end cut. For this tutorial I cut the right hand bit at the line. In my version, I didn't cut it and it looks a bit long. In the picture to the right, I've included the new binocular and a pouch bit from, I believe, the Space Marine Scout set. I've included it here because it looks like the perfect size for these binos. So, if you want to add a bit more to your vet, add one or two of these pouches to show where he keeps his extra fluff!

And finally, though I can't show the whole submission until the contest is over, I can show some close-ups of for WIP purposes. If you want to see the whole set, go visit Equinox's blog. Please vote for your favorite squad while you are there.

Note the three fingered trigger hand. Had I more time, I would have tried to convert it. In case you are wondering about the left hands in both these pictures, they started out as Tau. It's actually quite easy to add a fourth finger to the left hand, because they are very close together. The trigger hand is a different story, as the fingers are more spread out.

Leman Russ Annihilator

2009-04-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

My last post included a Leman Russ Annihilator that I’ve had scratch built for a while, still waiting for its turn at painting. Like Admiral Drax, I had hoped for the Annihilator to be included in the new IG Codex. I like the idea of IG twin-linked lascannon goodness. Shame it was not meant to be. It'll get painted up (soon), as I’m sure it will come in handy for friendly Apocalypse battles. I’ve already used it for one battle, but it presented a tempting target and got taken out early.

I’ve included a couple WIP pics that better show some of the parts involved. It would be hard to recreate this one now, as some parts were purchased before GW stopped selling bits. The big piece in the front is from a Baal Predator. I filed off the symbol as best I could and then covered it with a clear piece from a blister pack. I love the detail on the smoke launchers too, but they are from the old Scout biker kit and are also no longer available.

I decided it was time to get some guitar string to use in conversions, I saw the look on many Forgeworld turrets, and finally made the trek to my local music store. One US dollar gave me plenty of “cabling” for future scratch building fun. It’s easy to work with, though you need a strong wire cutter; not a problem for me. I like the look it adds, and will use it on large model conversions in the future. I’m thinking of buying a smaller gauge wire for use on drop troop and similar conversions.

One other feature I like about this conversion is the wider turret. This was done using the demolisher turret bits. I had to make the turret wider so the wide Baal Predator bit would fit, but like the look enough that I’m considering making it standard on my future Russes. Since these bits are also not sold separately, I’ll need to learn to make a mold and use resin, so don’t count on anything real soon with this idea.

The hatch and commander are magnetized and removable which I did to a couple of my Russes for ease of transport. There is also a small magnet on the targetter box on the left side of the turret, which is for a HK missile (shown in the top picture). The WIP shots don’t have it, but there is an antenna mount at the rear of the turret, also magnetized for adding improved comms if desired.

Camera Procrastination?

2009-04-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

So, it’s been a while since my last post, but I promise I haven’t been lounging about 40k-less. Like others before me, I suffered from camera issues. While I thought I had the camera figured out, I went through a batch of blurry and poorly lit pictures, and considered them unfit for print. Since my hobby time is sparse, I procrastinated on taking pictures because taking a long time setting up only to get bad pictures seemed like wasted time.

I figured out a space strictly for taking pictures would be a great solution. Unfortunately, every bit of space in the house is taken, so setting up a permanent home for taking pictures is not an option. I found another way to have dedicated space. The way is in the form of the long, short box I use to store my WIP minis. I think it's a keyboard box. Even covered with minis, it’s light weight and can be moved anywhere in the house, without fear of it caving in, or out. It also turns out it is the perfect length for taking pictures of minis. I put the mini on one end and the camera on the other. The only issue then becomes finding the right light. I have a low watt table lamp on my work desk, plus my hobby lamp, and I also use a portable, clip-on shop lamp. While the table and hobby lamps stay put, I can aim the shop lamp wherever I want to find the right light for taking pictures.

Now, what’s been taking the rest of my time can be seen in the photo below: Here, still WIP, are 32 guardsmen, two tanks and three motorcycles. The guardsmen are all recently built and primed, and I finally figured out the paint scheme to use on them, so they are my main focus for a while. Like the Russ on the right, the main colors are Adeptus Battlegrey and Dheneb Stone. While I like the color scheme on the far left, it doesn’t go with the tank scheme, so I’ll probably save it for a veteran squad later.

One of the Sergeants sports a lasgun, which I recently read is no longer accepted issue, so I may need to reconvert that one. No significant conversions on these. One Sergeant sports a unique CCW, made from a Catachan long knife and part of a straight pin (on each side). There are grooves on the long knife, which a straight pin, cut to lenghth, fits in quite nicely.

The tanks have been built/converted for a while, but I finally got around to painting the Russ on the right. It was my first large model in a while, and I’ve learned a thing or three about masking and paint coverage. I wasn’t impressed with the way the Dheneb Stone acted on the black primer, but the Adeptus Battlegrey went on very smoothly. It's still a WIP, with treads and accessories to be added, as well as some weathering. I'll write a short article on the Leman Russ Annihilator on the left and post it later.

You can hardly see them in the main picture, but there are three Rough Rider motorcycles too. They’ve also been done for a while, and I still need to add riders. I was having trouble figuring out how to do the handlebars, but believe I’ve solved that issue. I’m putting together the parts to convert two more motorcycles to fill out the squad, and will make a tutorial as a WIP.

Lurking Lictor

2009-02-03T20:17:00.001-08:00

This Lictor's been lurking in my to do stash for some time now, long ago posed and ready for it's turn at the Paint Pot. My youngest son's used him for a game or two, and has asked me each time to at least glue the head on. So, I did one better and finished him up too.

No real conversion work here, except for the base. I wanted him to stand a bit taller, and to look out instead of down, so we decided to have him walking up a rock. We also played with the idea of magnitizing its claw so it could sometimes hold an enemy for effect, but decided against that. Maybe some other time...

This is the standard paint job for our hordes; black primer, Shadow Grey, Snake Bite Leather and Purple Ink in the fleshy bits. Every time I use the Snake Bite Leather for the back plate on a Tyranid, I decide it's much too long and tedious a process for a whole army, given my time schedule. But we really like the look. Maybe those with the brown markings will be the tyranid equivalent of veterans. I just can't see myself painting that on the whole army. Unless I can find a way to speed the process, the Gaunts may have to hit the table without it.

Also, this is the first large rock I've based and painted to a decent level. This was created and added to the base before I learned a few tricks about rock bases. I made it using wall spackle. I'd probably use a chunk or two of wood mulch if I were doing it today. Still, it looks much better than the small hill we made for the Carnifex. Again, I found many hints about painting bases and stones through the various communities. They were a great help.

Best Based 40k Mini Contest

2009-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

I am honored to have won first place in the Competitor's Choice category for Best Based Mini at ++ FROM THE WARP ++ . There were some great entries, and I wish a hearty congratulations to Matt and his DeathWing, winner of the World Wide Choice.

I would have liked to have some WIP photos to provide, but unfortunately I'm not the quickest painter so was worried I'd not finish in time if I stopped to take pictures. Frankly, I'm slow to put paint to a finished miniature, and might not have finished this one were it not for the contest inspiring me on. So, many thanks to Ron Saikowski for this contest.

I hope to give you a good run down of what I did, and follow-up with a similar effort a companion piece waiting in the wings. I had created some ruined city bases for some IG Heavy Weapon teams, and wanted to continue the theme for this sniper. The upper body is the Forge World tank commander sniper I had picked up on ebay, and the lower body is standard Cadian sprue. While the based figure and wall had been assembled a while back, I wanted to add something to it before I entered it in a contest. So, I went tutorial hunting on the various blogs in the FtW Blogger Group and found some really helpful stuff.

Other than painting ideas, what added the "something different" was the Tree Making Tutorial at jabberjabber's Warpstone Flux site. This was a great run-down of the old railroad modeler's wire technique to make trees. I altered the idea a little to make vines climbing the building face. It worked extremely well, giving me the exact look I was trying to achieve.

I wanted to keep some of the look of the twisted wire, so took another tip from Ron, which was a reprint of an article about Priming With Acrylic Gesso. I found unthinned white Gesso worked well as a very thin filler, especially if used in multiple coats. So, I "primed" the vine prior to installation, using two coats. For the first coat, I mixed three big drops of white Gesso and one small drop of brown ink and applied liberally. For the second coat, I added another drop of brown ink to the remainder and applied not so liberally. It was a great viney color. Unfortunately, this experiment showed me Gesso is not very sturdy when handled a lot, which I had to do to install the vine, and I lost much of that great color and had to retouch.

To secure it to the building, I had twisted extensions (like a very short branch) from the wire in key locations (most done prior to priming) which I inserted into corresponding drilled holes on the building face. A little bit of glue in the hole to secure it, and added foliage hid the point very well. This securing method also provided the flexibility to add more wire "branches" so I could keep the main vine thin, but still have as many off-shoots as I wanted.

For my work, I strayed from clump foliage and went for a leafy effect. I found a decorative paper punch with small leaves and actually punched a bunch out of tracing paper. Before punching, I painted the paper with a thin coat of Dark Angels Green on both sides. After individually applying the leaves, I touched them up with a Dark Angels Green / Yellow mix. This was very time consuming, mostly due to painting and punching the paper.

I also added in some wood effect, using real wood. It wasn't ready for the original entry, but you can see it in the new picture here. The burned wood effect was achieved by, well, burning the wood!

I'd probably look for something easier for a future project. Still, the added effort made something unique, and it was fun, so all is well in the end. Everything's worth a try, at least once...